


get out my way

by zanymalik



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Hockey, Blood and Injury, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Violence, i guess lmao, lapslock, they're cute or something, this all sounds very dramatic but it's not i promise, tw gendered slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27659740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanymalik/pseuds/zanymalik
Summary: there’s a splatter of crimson on the ice, blood trickling down his lips from his nose, but he smiles anyway, something that looks damn near serene as he looks out to meet mark’s gaze despite the mess that’s been made of his practical baby face. he knows he’s won now. mark thinks he looks fucking incredible.———nct hockey au.
Relationships: Jung Sungchan/Mark Lee
Comments: 6
Kudos: 81





	get out my way

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this on a whim because the 90s love concept photos sparked something feral within me? unedited, unbeta'd, etc.
> 
> tw: gendered slurs and generally kind of coarse language, which is, unfortunately, a pretty prevalent thing in hockey/sports in general. implications of some spiciness, but nothing graphic.
> 
> thank you for reading!
> 
>  **edit 11/26/20:** updated to change the name of the team from the nct u raptors to the nct u dinosaurs after the mv was actually... y'know... released ...

this game blows.

kyle branson, defenseman, #13 on the riverview grizzlies, has been on mark’s ass all fucking game. the nct u dinosaurs are already losing 4-1 and mark’s been on edge ever since it was his turnover that led to their opponent’s third goal, and at this rate, their team’s not gonna make the playoffs if they don’t get their shit together soon. how the hell does he expect to be named captain next year, his senior year, his _last chance_ to make a good impression on all the scouts that come to their games, if he keeps making stupid mistakes like this?

he receives the puck, a clean tape-to-tape pass, spotting a clear path he can take towards the net, because while he’s on the smaller size compared to his teammates, it means he’s _wicked_ fast. nobody stands a chance. with an inhale, he gears up to make his break for it, starting towards the goalie and dodging one defenseman, blades digging noisily into the ice with each powerful stroke of his skates ...

and there branson is a-fucking-again, knocking him straight into the boards, the glass clattering noisily as he crashes into it practically headfirst and barely keeps his balance.

mark sees red.

“you wanna go, lee?”

 _don’t do it_ , mark reasons with himself. _that’s what this motherfucker wants. don’t take a stupid penalty. score a fucking goal._

his ego stings, but he forces himself to roll his eyes, shaking his head as though to shake off this encounter entirely, to get his brain back into this thing.

“fucking pussy,” branson sneers at mark as he starts to skate away, and then —

ends up face down on the ice, after a cross-check from behind square between his shoulders by a large mass of a boy who discards his stick, drops his gloves before asshole-number-thirteen even has a chance to start getting up again.

“shut the fuck up,” jung sungchan, #27, spits, gliding in a circle around his foe as he gets back up on his skates, immediately dropping his gloves. the two of them size each other up in a moment that seems almost frozen in time, isolated from the rest of the world around them, oblivious to the rising sound of the crowd cheering around them, oblivious to mark lee leaning back against the boards, watching.

there’s a fleeting second of stillness.

“make me, asshole.”

sungchan moves first, leaping into action and grabbing the front of his opponent’s jersey with tightly curled fingers while throwing a right hook towards his face that lands. branson’s able to grip onto his sleeve, one bare hand curled into his collar, and wrench that fist away from his face, both of them stuck in this tight hold, circling each other and trying to escape from the other’s grasp. it’s like some kind of choreographed dance, stuck in slow motion. there’s something kinda beautiful about it —

except then branson’s fist lets go of sungchan’s jersey suddenly to hit him with an uppercut that knocks his helmet clear off, other fist shooting up to punch him in the face right after. 

there’s a splatter of crimson on the ice, blood trickling down his lips from his nose, but he smiles anyway, something that looks damn near serene as he looks out to meet mark’s gaze despite the mess that’s been made of his practical baby face. he knows he’s won now. mark thinks he looks fucking incredible.

his opponent gave up his advantage the moment he let go of sungchan’s jersey, and he’s more than willing to take advantage of that fact, using his size advantage to knock branson to the ice again, tumbling down with him and pinning him to the ice, bare fists pummelling branson’s face over and over again, his helmet skittering away, and sungchan doesn’t relent. 

it takes the referee and both linemen to pull sungchan off of the other guy, the referee pointing directly to the tunnel at the end of the dinosaurs’ bench — two minutes for cross-checking, two minutes for instigating, five minutes for fighting, and a game misconduct.

sungchan complies with little more resistance, shrugging off the linesman trying to guide him back towards the bench and throwing up the sign of the horns towards the crowd to even more thunderous cheering as he hops off of the ice and trots down the tunnel to the locker room, the sounds of two-dozen sticks slapping against the ice to congratulate both on a job well done.

what a kid.

* * *

  


it’s hours later now, long after mark pulls his #2 jersey over his head in the locker room after a 4-3 loss that should probably feel worse than it does. fortunately (read: unfortunately) for him, though, he’s gotten accustomed to the feeling of losing games in the midst of the dinosaurs’ current slump, eight games in. it’ll probably keep him up tonight when he tries to go to sleep, each mistake replaying on a loop in his head, practical kryptonite to an overachieving perfectionist like mark lee.

“c’mere,” he hears himself saying as sungchan opens the bathroom door and leans against the doorframe, looking all tall and. hot. his longer, floppy hair’s dripping wet and his t-shirt’s clinging to his torso and his sweatpants are sitting a little too low on his hips and. it’s whatever.

“‘m gonna get you all wet, hyung.”

mark’s brain maybe short circuits for a moment as he takes in _that_ particular string of words, mouth opening to respond before closing as he forces himself to get his shit together when he sees the unironically innocent way that sungchan’s brows furrow, looking a hell of a lot like a puppy caught doing something he shouldn’t. god, mark thinks he’s too horny for his own good sometimes — he needs to take it down a notch, maybe.

and then the corner of sungchan’s mouth curls up into a little smirk and mark wants to die, possibly.

“come _here_ ,” mark repeats, trying not to let a whine color his voice. he’s supposed to be the one in charge here, not adorable little freshman defenseman jung sungchan who may or may not have mark lee wrapped around his finger.

finally, his boyfriend (yeah, _boyfriend_ , not that anyone really knows — not anyone on the team, anyways) complies, climbs up and sits cross-legged at the foot of mark’s bed. _so difficult_. he sighs, scooting closer to sungchan, frowning a little at the way the skin around his eye’s starting to turn various shades of purple. he reaches out, thumb tracing over the vertical line of stitches that keep his pouted lower lip together.

“let me see,” he insists, thumb sliding gingerly from his wound and to the center of his lips, pressing down, maybe even sneaking his finger further into his mouth to graze over the tip of his tongue. “it can’t be that bad.”

sungchan _grumbles_ , threatens mark a little with some light pressure of his teeth biting down on his finger to get him to cut it out, but when mark — stubborn, _stubborn_ mark — doesn’t relent, he opens his mouth, tongue licking briefly over his front teeth when mark’s hand drops back to his lap.

mark tips his head to the side as he takes in the sight of sungchan baring his teeth at him in a sort of grin-turned-grimace like a petulant child being told to smile for a photo, teeth clenched together like that one emoji. the boy’s two front teeth, once perfectly squared off, are a little less so now; the tooth on the left is chipped, surely broken by the same punch that split his lip, knocked his helmet right off of his head. his eyes narrow a little as he looks over sungchan from his floppy hair to his slightly round cheeks and down to his ridiculous mouth, and he swears he can see sungchan flush under such intense scrutiny.

“i don’t know how you can look so cute even when your face is busted as hell,” mark says at last, breaking the silence that looked like it might suffocate sungchan to death, unable to stop the cheesy grin from sneaking across his face. “fucking unfair, dude.”

sungchan lets out an annoyed huff and shoves mark’s shoulder, rolling his eyes as he grumbles, “shut up.”

he can’t help but laugh, but not unkindly. he’s so used to being the one ribbed by his teammates for being too serious, too stubborn, too in his own head. it’s refreshing to tease sungchan, nineteen years old and still not exactly sure of who he is or what he wants to do with his life — if professional hockey is even what he wants to do when he graduates. it’s refreshing, too, to be able to be there for him, to try to help him figure himself out. life’s hard enough when you’re still an angsty teen.

“you really didn’t have to do that, you know,” he finally says after sobering a little, looking at the boy before him far too fondly, his hand reaching back out to settle on sungchan’s knee.

sungchan shakes his head, immediately contests: “i did.”

mark scrunches his nose at that. _he’s_ the one who probably should’ve fought that dickhead, to set a good example or something that sometimes penalties are okay to take if it means standing up for yourself, for your team. but then, isn’t that what sungchan did? stood up for his team? maybe it’s mark who should be learning lessons from _him_.

“i didn’t like how that guy was talking to you,” sungchan continues. “and i like you, so. yeah.”

apparently that’s all the reason sungchan needed, even if there’s still the stubborn part of his caveman brain that wants to be strong and tough and hypermasculine, that wants to gently chide that he doesn’t need sungchan to fight his battles for him. maybe he would’ve said as such a few years ago, when _he_ was the dumb, brash freshman, but there have been a lot of things that he’s learned about himself since then — namely, that he’s kinda gay. that he has emotions, that it’s okay to express them.

“thanks,” mark says after a moment of pause, voice a little soft because at the moment, _he’s_ feeling a little soft.

“uh huh,” sungchan says, shrugging it off like it’s no big deal. maybe to him, it’s not.

mark reaches out, fingers threading in the damp strands of sungchan’s dark brown hair, and sungchan takes that as a cue to lean in, lips parted so he can kiss him. mark hums, a pleased little sound against sungchan’s mouth, leaning closer, but there’s a strange poking sensation against his lips in the process and he draws back suddenly.

“i can’t kiss you when your lip’s stitched up, dummy!”

sungchan looks even _more_ like a kicked puppy now, overgrown and pouty and cute, lip jutting out defiantly. 

“ _c’mooooon_ ,” sungchan fully whines, fingers reaching out to curl into the front of mark’s t-shirt, practically grabby-handsing like a kid in a candy store.

“nope. you break your stitches and bleed all over me and we’re done for.”

“this is the thanks i get for fighting for you honor?”

“oh, please,” mark laughs, throwing his arms around sungchan’s neck, hugging him tightly, rising up onto his knees to pull him closer. “i thought you just _had_ to fight for me? were you contractually obligated or something?”

“shut up,” sungchan huffs, and his crankiness just causes mark to laugh harder. his fingers sneak down to pinch the other boy’s side which makes him yelp, catches him off guard, and then mark takes advantage of this opportunity to make his attack, tickling up his sides, making sungchan wriggle and squirm and finally, after some pseudo-wrestling, mark ends up with sungchan pinned beneath him, panting and a little wide-eyed, and mark just smiles wickedly down at him.

“i guess i’ll just have to find another way to make it up to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea what i did here.
> 
> follow me on [twt](http://www.twitter.com/satanicbaek)!


End file.
